Losing a Daughter to Blood Clots; Paige Greenwood Advocates for Awareness and Preventative Measures

Heidi Greenwood celebrated her 18th birthday on March 2nd 2013. She was a leader in her church community, at her school, and Captain of the Rocklin High cross country team. That Fall, Heidi would fulfill her dreams, and run at the collegiate level at Brigham Young University Hawaii. Nobody expected her to die from blood clot complications just a few weeks later on March 22nd.

The death of Heidi shook her Rocklin, California neighborhood. The outpouring of support and memoriam was difficult to disregard. Vigils were attended by hundreds of people, and messages of remembrance were seen all around the tight knit community. This unexpected tragedy grabbed the attention of Marc Reynolds, the Executive Vice President of Payor Relations at Precision Medical Products. PMP was founded in Rocklin, and they were highly focused on mobile Deep Vein Thrombosis prevention technology. When he learned about how Heidi passed away, he reached out to her mother Paige Greenwood.

Greenwood visited the office of PMP and shared the painful story of losing her daughter. Heidi was having pain and swelling in one leg, and difficulty breathing, two signs of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and  Pulmonary Embolism (PE). Deep Vein Thrombosis is a potentially fatal blood clot that forms most often in the leg and can travel to the lungs where it becomes a Pulmonary Embolism.

Heidi was young, healthy, and active. She was not your typical at risk blood clot patient. Even her medical team was not able to recognize the warning signs.

Several factors raised Heidi’s risk of developing a blood clot which included; being on birth control, undergoing surgery a month prior, and an unknown hereditary blood clot disorder. Five out of her six siblings learned they shared this blood clotting disorder and are taking medication to mitigate the risk.

Greenwood has become an advocate for blood clot awareness and urges people to learn the warning signs. She hopes for the medical community to take more preventative measures like, utilization of mechanical prophylaxis devices such as PMP’s Circul8 products. Patients are at an elevated risk of developing a blood clot for up to a month following surgery.

Through Heidi’s story, her mother has saved several people in their community by helping them recognize the early symptoms of blood clots.  

See Paige Greenwood share Heidi’s story at a recent PMP sales meeting here: